


Let Them Find a Better Way

by Lillian_Sunshine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 8x04, F/M, Fix-It, I mean it is everything about oathsex except for explicit graphic content, Oathsex done right, We getting emotional up in this joint to make up for D&D's lack of it, however this isn't porn really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 12:13:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18738784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian_Sunshine/pseuds/Lillian_Sunshine
Summary: D&D manipulated us into caring about these two again just to talk them away from us and give them a shallow sex scene. I'm one of many that's committed to take them back. Events take place right after "The Long Night" however much of my characterization is taken from the books





	Let Them Find a Better Way

Standing there, back against the wall and hacking at dead men, I couldn't help but admit to myself that this was the ending I had planned.

 

I decapitated one wilding and stabbed another creature so old it was skeletal. Five more took their place. My body was down there fighting in this war, and I was overwhelmed with a survival instinct that surged through my body but let my mind feel like I was floating far above it all.

 

Ever since I was fifteen I knew that if I could manage it, I was going to die with a sword in my hand. _Like Arthur Dayne and all the better men I used to keep company with._

 

So I rode North. Life had simply gotten too complicated, too, familiar. _I didn't have any illusions about serving great heroes, I just promised myself no more monsters._ What I did to Cersei well, that shocked me. _Everything I did, every atrocity was for her, so why don't I feel anything now it was all for naught?_

 

I was doing far better than I expected with one hand. The dead were relentless but they had no art to their swings.

 

 _The Sept of Baelor burning, that was the start of the hollowing out between us_. Allying with the Mad Crow, watching my men burn, feeling the eyes of Walder Frey boring into me,  that vulture regarding me as a compatriot, it was all too much. I did these things from force of habit. Cersei was in my blood, how could I not fight for her?

 

Brienne kept me alive as much as my sword. _How long since I've fought beside an equal like this, an equal that respects me?_ I hacked desperately at the dead.

 

 _And then I saw her, among the likes of the honorable Jon Snow, all of them fighting for what they believed in, all of them looking so alive._ It was almost comical. Cersei looked at her and I could tell she was coming up with every flaw imaginable for Brienne, every reason why she was superior and why I couldn't possibly want her. Meanwhile, I just noticed her eyes. They were beautiful. _She did everything she ever said she would. It's all been so simple for her, her entire life._ Everything Brienne was, I wasn't. I felt so worthless. Another thought had come then, settled deep in my chest. _Cersei will never make this feeling stop._

 

We were tiring,  Brienne and I. The dead were not. I was going to fight with her, long as I could, but with every stroke, we got slower. It would be minutes.

 

So yes, I had ridden North. Any future seemed obsolete. Cersei would never take me back after this, and I couldn't imagine fighting for the dragon queen. No, all that was on my mind was wanting to die feeling worth something.

 

 _Now that it's happening, I don't think this is how I want to go._ Death by sword should be… grander. A test of skill between worthy opponents, with plenty of witnesses there to tell of your heroics. Not being ripped into nothingness by a vicious horde of monsters. _You still think you could die like The Sword of the Morning you one handed fool?_ No matter. Dying in a fight with Brienne was more than I deserved, and I was grateful.

 

 _It will be easier to go if I don't think._ And so I didn't. I lost myself in the smell of blood and the sound of our swords cutting through the wights. On some level I felt instinctively that this was hell and I was already dead. Brienne and I were damned together, fighting this unspeakable, unending enemy for all of eternity.

 

And then I hacked at air, and the dead fell. I looked around. Pod to my left, and Brienne to my right. Somehow, we prevailed. Even as the adrenaline left me and I slid to the ground, feeling something like giddiness rise up from deep within myself at the prospect of more existence, one question quietly put itself forward.

 

_What the fuck am I going to do next?_

 

***

“We survived,” Brienne said, sitting on her bed, doing up her shirt. I blinked twice, pushing myself up from the makeshift bed of furs Brienne had laid out for me. _Right._ After the dead fell all I remember being capable of was following Brienne around as she sought out Lady Sansa, and roused the wounded. I think I may have helped, it was something of a blur. Someone had treated our wounds and then we stumbled away with leaden legs. Neither of us realized I was following her back to her chambers until we both stood inside of them.. I murmured my apologies, that I was tired and not thinking correctly. Then she asked me to stay, and we both collapsed into sleep. _What to make of that, what to make of that indeed._

 

“We did.” I tried to avert my eyes away from her collarbone as she adjusted her clothes to fit her. Not the right time or the right place. _All the unkind things I used to think about her form, and here I am._ It was absurd. She hadn’t changed. She was still utterly unfeminine in form, flat chested, square, and tall. I was the one who altered. Objectively, she was not pretty, not like the ladies of King’s Landing, not like Cersei. _Yet when she knelt to be knighted, I never saw such a graceful creature in all my days._ “Thank you Ser Brienne, you kept me alive.”

 

“Brienne,” she said, in a softer tone than what she used to correct me for calling her wench. “When it’s just us please call me Brienne.”

 

I met her gaze. We were different now, different in the best way. _Gods’ bless the battlefield._ “Only if you’ll do the same and call me Jaime.” She smiled. She never used to smile before.

 

“You kept me alive as well Jaime, many thanks.” She shrugged on her jerkin, and reached for her sword belt. _I don’t care, I don’t care what they say beauty is, she is beautiful._ “Don’t feel the need to rush up if you’re tired, Lady Sansa made it very clear that the first priority is to take care of the living” She fastened it tightly around her hip. “However once you’re up to it, we have an awful lot of dead to tend to.

 

“Alright.” I said, still feeling rather dazed. _This is the morning after. I am alive, and drunk on her voice._ She strode across the room and paused, resting herself against the doorframe. “I’ll be out by the west wall, where we were fighting. A lot of friends of mine died last night and I owe it to them to see their faces.” She took another step outside the door, before oscillating and sticking her head back through.

 

“I’m glad you were able to join us, Jaime. I can’t tell you how glad I was to see your face.”

 

“I had no other choice.” She nodded at me and was gone. I looked outside. We had gone to bed at dawn and it was now not much more than midday. _Gods, the strength of that woman._ All I wanted to do was sleep. But I was already at odds with too many here at Winterfell by virtue of my past. It would not do to slack.

 

***

“She loves you!” Tyrion said, taking a bite out of some brown bread. He sought me out in the dining hall as all the survivors gradually limped out, licking their wounds and regaining their strength over today's rations.

 “We both survived the assault of the dead.” I said flatly. “Don’t you want to talk about that?”

 “Absolutely not.” Tyrion took a swig of wine. “I want to drink til I forget.” I shot him a look and he returned it insolently. Anger flared up in my chest. _After all he’s done…_ But ah, it could not last. We’re the only family we have left after all. We have to get on, no matter the past. “The dead are dead and we are alive. What better time to talk about love?”

 “She doesn’t love me.”

 “Doesn’t love you! She was absolutely besotted around that fireplace, even I could tell that and you were the one she was looking at!”

 I blushed, holding the feeling of that moment close to my heart. _I have never done and I will never do something so right for the rest of my life._ “That was different, I just made her happy.”

 “Yes people do tend to fall in love with those who make them happy.” Tyrion shot me a coy smile. “Furthermore, I saw your face. You were head over heels!”

“We’re just…” Tyrion crossed his arms. I remembered what it felt like to please her. There was no haughtiness, no demands or conditions, no “well it was about time”. Just joy. Just good. _The only time I could ever seem to make Cersei joyful is when I was inside of her, and even then she wouldn’t admit it._

“Jaime,” Tyrion said. “You gave her the world.”

 “It’s complicated.”

 “It is not. You love her she loves you. Go on, love someone, lust after someone other than your sister! Pod and I have talked about it and we’re both decidedly  in favor.”

 “And how would you like to lose your virginity to a man who has only been with his sister!” I remarked rather loudly. Tyrion overdramatically winced as a few people turned and stared. I sighed. “Look. We’ve built a friendship, I’m still not sure how,” I sopped up a bit of my porridge. “I was at my lowest point with her, Tyrion. I was vulnerable and she defended me. She was strong when I was weak. I’ve done my best to return the favor. And over the years, when we’ve met we’ve remembered each other, and we’ve been friends. But she’s still Brienne of Tarth, and I’m just the Kingslayer. The maimed Kingslayer. My love could only dishonor her.”

“You are Jaime Lannister,” Tyrion said fiercely “My brother. As a child, when I came crying to you you comforted me. My brother that made the tremendously brave choice to kill a king that needed to be killed, despite the very real fact no one in the seven kingdoms will thank you for it. I think you deserve her. _Those things were a very long time ago little brother, when I was very very young._ ” I gazed down at my plate, and Tyrion relaxed.

“Besides, you knighted her,” Tyrion said, popping another piece of porridgey bread into his mouth. “She seemed rather honored.”

“I don’t want to ruin what we have.”

 “So don’t.” Tyrion said. “Make it better.”

 "Tyrion…”

 “You burned all your bridges in King's Landing. Cersei will never accept you back into her bed after this.” Tyrion spread his arms. “You are here. In Sansa Stark’s hall, surrounded by people who remember you as the man who crippled their liege lord and whose family slaughtered the Young Wolf at dinner. They’re fighting for a queen whose father you killed! Now is no time for playing it safe.”

***

Of course he got us drunk.

 It was wonderful. We were laughing. All the different feasts I had attended over the past few years flashed in my memory. I was in good humor for a fair amount of them, but I was always a little guarded, a little cold, a little lonely. I would sit there, breaking bread with people who tolerated me, or at best with my sister, who was always in a queer humor. _But these people want me here. She wants me here._ I felt free.

 “You’re a virgin.” My brother grinned. I bristled. _You fucker._

 I tried to deflect him. “That’s a statement about the present, not a-”

 “At no point in the past have you ever had relations with a man. Or a woman.” Tyrion continued. _You’re spoiling everything._ I could tell she was crestfallen. She stood, just like she had in the bathes those years ago when I insulted her abilities as a protector.

 “I have to take a piss.” I watched her flee, my head clearing of all the wine uncomfortably fast. She kept her eyes away from all of us, brushing past Tormund as quickly as possible. When he moved to go after her I stopped him. I would not have her feel like more of a joke.

 “Well?” Tyrion said blithely. “Go on.” I glowered.

 “You’re just so helpful today aren’t you,” I said, grabbing his chalice before he could take another sip. “I’m so glad you know what’s best for her, and for me for that matter. All the years you spent learning about her personality really just showed.”

 “Jaime, I-”

 “Stop. Talking.” I dumped the wine in his lap. “I know Brienne, not you. You can’t do that sort of thing to her. She’s had a lot of your problems but none of your temperament. You’ve made every single insecurity of yours a joke but she’s built walls up around hers and if you attack them like that the drawbridge goes up.”

 “Seeing as you know her so well,” Tyrion said, clumsily putting a cloth to the stains on his pants. “Perhaps you would be the ideal candidate to go talk to her.”

 “Don’t you dare hurt her just to show how clever you are.” I said. But when I stormed out of the hall, it was her room my footsteps were taking me to.

***

She was sitting on her bed looking down at herself when I came. “I’m sorry about Tyrion.” I said, announcing my presence to her before entering. “He’s rather unpredictable when he drinks.”

 “It’s alright,” she said, sounding like someone who wasn’t. “He was just having good fun, they all were.” She sighed.”I’m too prickly for my own good sometimes, or at least that’s what my father used to say.”

 I shrugged. “Perhaps, but that’s not going to change now.” I pulled out a flask of something lovely and Dornish. “Wine? I’ve saved it.”

 “No thank you, I’ve had too much.”

 "Alright.” I hovered nervously, uncertain of what to do next.

 “You can sit,” Brienne said. “If you want to.” I did, pulling out a chair from her side table.

 “You’re Ser Brienne of the Battle for Winterfell. An oathkeeper,  a protector, and a warrior.” I poured myself a glass and toasted her. “You can be as prickly as you damn well please.”

 “Here, here.” Brienne said shyly. “Thank you for coming Jaime.”

 “Of course.”

 “It really is alright, I don’t know why I got so upset. I know I can never have.. that. I’ve known it since I was a girl.” She looked over at Oathkeeper. “What I dared to hope for I got. You gave it to me.” Suddenly, I was hyper aware of the blood rushing around my body. I resisted the urge to down my wine glass. _Don’t be foolish, don’t be foolish._ Unbidden, Tyrion’s words came into my mind _Now is no time for playing it safe._ I never had, had I? Sitting there, looking at her firelit face, I was keenly aware  of two things. I wanted her. And I didn’t want to hurt her.

 “Giving you the things that you want make me the happiest man in Westeros.” I said. We locked eyes and I didn’t know what she saw there. Fear I think. “Not just because you’re the truest person I’ve ever met, and one of the only people possessing of a knighthood and a Valyrian steel sword that actually earned them. But because I love to see you joyful.”

 She inhaled.

 “And you could, by the way. You could have that. If you wanted it.”

She was silent for a long time. “From whom?”

 “Me.”

 “Jaime, you, you can’t,” she swallowed hard. “You of all people can’t do this to me.”

  _You fool._ “I won’t, if it’s not want you want, we can just forget-”

 “No! That’s not what I, you couldn’t want me.” There was nothing between us. She was giving me her soul. I resolved to let her finish. “Nobody wants me. I know that. Especially not you, not when you’ve had someone like Cersei. Not when you look like that. I know you’re a kind man, even if I’ve the only one who knows that, you’ve been kind to me but. Please. Your pity is the worst thing there is.”

I downed the wine. “Fuck Cersei Lannister.”

 “Fuck Cersei Lannister?”

 “Yes. And fuck pity. I don’t care.” I slammed the wine glass down. “I’m going to come sit next to you now.”

 She didn’t move away. “I want you to look at me.” I said, unfastening the straps of my golden hand, placing it in between us, and removing the leather as well, til only my bare stump remained. “All of those horrible things people say about you. How you’re a she-man, a true beast. I thought them once. When you were bringing me to King’s Landing I used to sit at night, bored out of my mind, thinking about cruel japes I could use to hurt you come morning. But I don’t think like that anymore.”

 “What changed?”

 “Somewhere along the way, I saw you.” I said. “I don’t know when it happened.”

 “You saw me?” I reached for her with my good hand. She reached back, and suddenly I could swear our hearts were beating at the same time.

 “Yes. I saw your bravery first. Your stubbornness. Your compassion. You amaze me. You continue to amaze me. Your body, well I’ve stopped seeing your body as a joke for quite a long time.” I grasped her hand tightly. “Your body is just you. And you’re beautiful.”

 Her eyes shone. Right up til the moment she closed them and came to me, placing her hand around my waist and drawing me close, putting her lips on mine. We let go of each other’s hands and I brought mine up to her neck, desperate to have her closer. _Beautiful soft skin._ She was carrying me away, I was floating in what I was sure was the purest feeling I’d ever had in my life. _I am happy. I am so so happ-_

 It was the way she climbed on top of me that did it. Not that I didn’t want her to, by all the gods I did. But, this, this was what I had done with Cersei, except Brienne was better. Where I was rough she was tender, what I demanded, she asked for, hesitantly. I wanted to give her all of it. But a lifetime of memories flooded into my brain, unwelcome, uninvited. _Cersei laying there waiting for me, making me come to her. Cersei hot and angry protesting my advances until she melted and begged for more. My voice, always so insistent. I never cared where we were or what the situation was I just always always take what I want. Cersei screaming that he saw us._

 I realized that in an entire lifetime of sex, I had never once made love.

 “No,” I said, my voice so low I wasn’t sure if I had spoken aloud. “You can’t.

 She stopped. “Did I make a mistake?”

 I started to tremble. “You can’t possibly know who I am.”

 She rolled off of me, “Jaime what’s wrong?”

 “Me.” I said and I wanted to laugh that I ever thought I could be good for her. “Brienne what are you doing? I’m a bad man.”

 “I don’t believe that.”

 “You don’t believe it?” I said, staring at her cheekbones, her chin, the blouse I had been very close to talking off, anywhere but her face.

“You think I’m a good man? I pushed a boy out a tower window, crippled him for life. For Cersei. I strangled my cousin with my bare hands, just to get back to Cersei. I would have murdered every man, woman, and child in Riverrun, for Cersei. She’s hateful. And so am I.”

 “Look at me,” Brienne said, cupping her hands around my face, forcing me to meet her gaze. Faintly, it registered deep within me that this was the tenderest look I had ever been given. “I don’t judge you Jaime.”

 “You should,” I breathed out, trying to turn away, get away from those eyes. She didn’t let me.

 “I hated you for a time. For a long time. You don’t think I’ve thought about Brandon Stark? Or your cousin? In the beginning you had everything. You were handsome, underneath the filth of the road. Member of the Kingsguard at age 15. Knighted. And I looked at you and I thought, that’s everything I ever wanted. Given to a man without honor. I had to fight tooth and nail to get into Renly’s Kingsguard, endure their jokes, be perfect, be better than all them to be labeled adequate. And even as Kingslayer you got it all, because you were a man and because your last name was Lannister.” _Why did I come. Why did I come. “_ You used to think of ways to insult me? That evening, after you were mocking Renly, I stayed up half the night imagining putting my sword through your throat, just like I saw that terrible shadow thing do him. That seems a rather hateful thought to me don’t you think?”

 “But you didn’t.” I said quietly.

 “I didn’t.” Brienne nodded. “I remembered myself and my vow and I am still alive because of that decision.” She stroked my hair. “What you’ve done, you’ve done. You pushed the Stark boy out a window. You were part of the force that saved his life. You saved me. At great risk to yourself you came back to get me from that horrible bear pit, They would have raped me, and I would have fought so hard they’d have killed me. Were you acting on your hateful nature then?”

  _Fierce eyes. Indescribable._ “No.” I said. “I wanted to see you safe.”

 “I don’t hate you anymore. Everything I knew about the world back then I learned in the long summer. The autumn taught me other lessons. I know exactly what you did. I won’t judge you Jaime.”

She reached for my arm, brought my stump up to her lips, and kissed it. All I could do was stare. When she let go I moved it so that my stump brushed against her cheek.

 _She sees me too. She sees me too._ I stopped trying to look away. Some shimmering light very deep inside me traveled up and out of my eyes, where it met with hers, and I swear they combined with each other and danced in the space between us.

“I never knew this feeling could be like this,” I said, barely breathing. There was nothing no hate, no judgment, no jealousy. Just love.

“What feeling?”

 “When it’s just you and your lover, in the whole world when you’re the only two people that matter, I didn’t know it could feel this wide. I thought it was intense and short and something you had to chase after and pin down. But it’s just here, right now and I could spend the rest of my life looking at your face.”

 She kissed me again and it was the death of fear. “It doesn’t matter what we’ve done” she whispered, tugging off my shirt, as I fumbled with her pants. “Just what we’re going to do next.”

 And then her breasts were out and they were small, stunted and perfect. “Forget about Cersei,”  she said as she climbed back on top of me and I gasped. “Forget about all the hate.” I felt 15 again, like this was my first time and instinct alone was all I had to go on. All that we went on. She stopped, peering down at me, and were almost together, clumsily, wonderfully one. “Let’s be new together. Tell me you want that. Tell me you trust me.”

I showed her. For the rest of our lives, I showed her.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no interest in adapting the scene where Jaime leaves because it my opinion it never should have happened. Jaime and Brienne just live happily. Ever. After. And that's the tea


End file.
